In applicant's prior patent application (Ser. No. 07/608,102, filed Oct. 31, 1990 is allowed) there is described an optical fiber connector in which two sets of optical fiber ends to be connected are contained in opposing V-grooves formed on plates contained in the respective interiors of first (left) and second (right) mating housings. Doors to the interior space are maintained in a normally closed position to seal the fiber ends from particulate matter. Mechanisms are provided on each half which actuate surface features of the other housing during mating engagement to open the access doors to the housing interiors. Thus, the doors unseal only when the housings are mated.
The mechanisms for aligning the fibers include upper and lower fiber-holding plates or substrates integrally fixed in the respective housings. The plates have fiber-receiving grooves. Each groove also contains an alignment sphere, fixed in location with respect to the fiber end, with the end and sphere spaced apart. The sphere center locates in the groove in line with the fiber core axis.
The opposing V-grooves of the plates are congruent in the sense that the corresponding grooves of the two plates are located within the same inter-groove spacing. As the two housings engage, an actuator slidably mounted in the left housing is moved inwardly by contact with the right housing. This allows the fiber substrate in the left housing to pivot downward, with its associated sphere and fiber assembly coming to rest in the corresponding alignment groove formed in the floor of the right housing. With the ball and fiber of the right housing positioned in their respective alignment grooves, the fiber ends come to rest in the desired axial alignment. The alignment spheres, besides providing precision axial alignment of the two fibers, also provide efficient focusing of the light emitted from the fiber ends through the spheres.
In realizing optical fiber connections pursuant to applicant's prior patent application, the precision required to effectively align the fiber ends and their associated alignment/focusing spheres in the manner summarized above, is achieved largely by building precision into the right and left housing members and their moving components. While fully functional from a technical standpoint, achieving the needed precision in this manner adds expense to the connector. The expense of achieving precision mounts dramatically when the inventive concept is applied to gang-connection of a multiplicity of optical fibers in a backplane.
Achieving the needed precision in the end-to-end connection of one or more pairs of optical fibers is not, however, a problem peculiar only to the gang-type sealed connector described in applicant's prior patent application. The generic problem is to devise a mechanism for realizing highly accurate and reliable fiber end alignment which can be constructed inexpensively, used readily by any skill level, and is durable under most operating conditions.